GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the investigation he has launched is aimed at giving citizens and candidates confidence in the 2022 election.
Vos has hired three former police officers to investigate the 2020 election, and former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to oversee the probe.
“We are not going to overturn the 2020 election. That’s not what this is about,” Vos said in an interview aired Sunday on “UpFront,” produced in partnership with WisPolitics.com.
“It’s about making sure that when we get to the 2022 election that all those folks who have concerns, myself included, that there were things that were done wrong in the 2020 election, aren’t replicated in the next election,” Vos said.
Vos said he has taken a “hands-off” approach to his investigators and isn’t directing them on a daily basis. He said the investigators are going through thousands of emails sent in from the public and looking into other tips about how elections were conducted locally. Vos also said an email address and tip line for the public would be announced soon.
“I think there are a lot of unanswered questions that we need to get to the bottom of,” Vos said.
Vos said he expects the investigators will have a report by October that will be made public.
“Hopefully at the end, we’ll be able to show the citizens why we spent the money and that it was worth the effort, hopefully,” Vos said.
Vos also said he wasn’t surprised that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed the $87.5 billion budget Republican lawmakers wrote, approved and sent to him.
Evers kept the tax cuts Republicans included in the budget.
“We really boxed him in, to the point where he accepted our tax cuts because he didn’t have another choice,” Vos said.
In another segment, Milwaukee Bucks President Peter Feigin said the public’s investment in Fiserv Forum is paying off, with the team in the NBA finals and new revenue being generated for area businesses, the city, the county and the state.
The public-private partnership to build Fiserv Forum came together six years ago, with taxpayers contributing almost half the estimated $524 million cost to build the arena.
Feigin said there is a ripple effect of economic development around the arena, with jobs created and the tax base increased. He also said the team’s current success is bringing people together. Tens of thousands of people have packed the Deer District, the plaza and area around Fiserv Forum, every night the Bucks play.
There’s a “great sense of pride, this kind of meeting place in the center of Milwaukee for the state of Wisconsin and kind of a real sense of community,” Feigin said.
He said the Bucks would work to continue to grow events for Fiserv Forum into the future.
“I think this arena should be doing 250-plus events a year, which would dramatically kind of change the environment in and around Milwaukee, really become one of the key venues in the country, as a stop in the Midwest,” Feigin said.
And an executive with the Oneida Nation told “UpFront” the tribe is hopeful the Bureau of Indian Affairs will approve the tribe’s deal with the state to offer betting on professional sports at its casino outside of Green Bay.
Chad Fuss, Oneida gaming assistant chief financial officer, said the tribe has been working on sports and event betting for several years. If the BIA approves, he said the tribe will convert a former sports bar at its casino into a betting parlor. He said it will be another amenity for casino customers.
“We wanted to stay at least even with our competition, if not give our customers another reason to visit Oneida Casino that maybe the other casinos in the state of Wisconsin currently at this time cannot offer,” Fuss said.
He added that Oneida expects other tribes in Wisconsin are researching sports and event betting.
“I think we’d be naive to think that the other 10 tribes in the state of Wisconsin aren’t looking at it,” Fuss said.
See more from the program:
http://www.wisn.com/upfront
